Random Illuminations: Conversations with Carol Shields

by Eleanor Wachtel

A great conversation can offer insight into the hearts and minds of its participants. In this intimate, wide-ranging collection of conversations (and some correspondence), writer-broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel and her friend, author Carol Shields, touch on both the personal and the professional. Eleanor Wachtel first met Carol Shields in 1980; her first interview with Carol occurred in 1987, following the publication of A Mystery . They soon became friends, embarking on a correspondence and conversations that would last her almost two decades. In this illuminating book, Eleanor Wachtel brings together her rich collection of interviews with Carol from that first occasion to Shields's death in 2003. Disarmingly direct, Carol Shields talks about her writing, language and consciousness, and her interest in "redeeming the lives of lost or vanished women," all the while touching on topics as diverse as feminism, raising children, the metaphorical search for a home, and the joys and griefs of everyday life. Carol Shields is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Stone Diaries . She also won the Governor General's Award for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction, the Orange Prize, and numerous other awards. She was twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Genres: Writing

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Eleanor Wachtel has been host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company since its inception in 1990

Reviews

[❀ Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

After enjoying reading The Stone Diaries, Larry's Party and Unless, it was an interesting meander through the life and thoughts of Carol Shields as she was interviewed and wrote to her friend and journalist, Eleanor Wachtel.

She is a quiet writer of life, feminism, family and her books should not be forgotten! She passed from breast cancer and it must have been a challenge and a privilege to reflect and write about a friend, sharing tidbits of a life, a friendship and writing!

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book well-known interviewer, writer and broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel shares a number of conversations and letters she exchanged with her friend Carol Shields, an iconic Canadian writer and winner of many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and The Governor General’s Award. They first met in 1980 and Wachtel interviewed Shields in 1987 after the publication of her novel "Swann". They felt a connection, became friends and talked and corresponded over the years, their relationship enduring over two decades until Shield’s death from breast cancer in 2003.

The interview and private correspondence reveal two sides of Shields. In the former readers see her public self, while Wachtel’s very skillful interview process leads Shields to comment on her work. The letters show a more open, personal and relaxed side of her as a friend, particularly after the diagnosis of her terminal illness. When Wachtel spoke to Shield's directly about her breast cancer diagnosis in 1997, her response was honest and forthcoming, as she described how it took her about a month to accept what was happening. These passages show how Wachtel was able to successfully merge her role as a professional interviewer and personal friend.

Wachtel shares Shield’s background and experiences, showing how they were often reflected in her work, although never directly. Shield’s writing focused on the everyday lives of women and in this account, readers learn why this subject was of such interest to her. She wanted to present women as she knew them, as intelligent and kind and not like what she referred to as “the bitches and bubbleheads” she had read about in past fiction.

Those who wish to explore Shield’s background will find the interviews a sparing but good source to learn about her middle-class upbringing in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, how she like other women in the sixties, did as was expected of her and became a wife and mother, only beginning to write later in life. These conversations also show both Wachtel’s and Shield’s love of writers and writing, sharing a sense of their personal and professional bond.

Wachtel wanted to share with others what she knew of Shield's intelligence, kindness and compassion, to honour the memory of the woman she admired. She includes an essay on coming to terms with the loss of her friend and her personal reflections on Shield’s death.

For those not who have not yet had the pleasure of reading some of Carol Shield’s large catalogue of work which includes books of poetry, ten novels, collections of short stories and two books of criticism, this is a good introduction to her work. It is also a heartfelt remembrance to a dear friend, a personal, well written account of an enduring friendship and the depth of loss when one loses such a deep connection with another.

[Ann Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to stumble across a copy of this book in a used bookstore a few months back, right before the pandemic began. It gave me an excuse to step back into the world of Carol Shields, an author whose fiction I have always admired. (I think I own every single one of her books.) I loved eavesdropping on the conversations between Carol and Eleanor: wide-ranging conversations about writing and life. I particularly loved this comment of Carol's: "Reading novels is not escape; it's a necessary enlargement of my life." My life -- and the life of so many other readers -- is larger and richer because of the novels of Carol Shields.

[Cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

I regret not having started reading Carol Shields sooner (through University Can Lit courses). These published interviews and letters between Eleanor and Carol offered conversations that deeply explored Carol's views on literature, feminism, fiction, the writing process, Jane Eyre and mortality. Her views particularly on the subject of mortality, encouraging to 'blurt bravely, get some words on paper and have lots of conversations with lots of people' I found particularly comforting as the notion of being an adult lost child, particularly resonates.

[Eleanor Cowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

" I see people as being fairly fragile...I think most of us lose the sense of that core once every day or once every hour...and we have to remind ourselves of who we are and re-establish ourselves and give ourselves a little jolt of courage." Enjoy treasured talks between two women, both writers and good friends. Prompted by Eleanor Wachtel, Carol Shields shares about the topics women writers need to be writing about - such as stretching convention and confronting taboos. Encouraging and engaging!
Eleanor Cowan, author of : A History of a Pedophile's Wife: Memoir of a Canadian Teacher and Writer